Kepone Scandal

WITH THE JAMES River contaminated by the toxic pesticide kepone, Virginia authorities followed a do-nothing policy dictated by lack of cleanup funds. Fines levied against Allied Chemical, the company responsible for the contamination, had first been reduced, then managed incompetently, while the commercial fishing industry urged early reopening of the river.

Kepone, a grayish white powder, was used in ant traps and to kill potato and banana plants. It was banned in the United States in 1975, the same year that the state of Virginia closed a small kepone plant near the James River, citing workers who showed signs of over-exposure to the chemical Over-exposure first would lead to headaches, nervousness, tremors, slurred speech, muscle-twitching, poor memory, and visual disturbances, then lead to cancer, reproductive, kidney, and liver damage.

The plant, operated by Life Sciences Product Company after 1973, made kepone for Allied Chemical, had been an Allied Chemical facility from 1966 to 1973, and was owned by two former Allied employees. A state investigation discovered that the plant had illegally released kepone into the environment, first to the James River and later to the local sewage plant.

While Governor Godwin Mills immediately banned fishing on a 100-mile stretch of the James River, he also petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to raise the permissible level of kepone in fish, a move that would have allowed the river to be reopened. In late January 1977, U.S. District Judge Robert R. Merhige levied a record $13.2 million fine against Allied Chemical, which pleaded no contest to 940 counts of illegal dumping.

He then agreed to reduce the fine to $5 million if Allied Chemical created an $8 million environmental fund for Virginia. Merhige declared that the [Page 480]company's managers were “good boys in my book.” That October, the Washington Post reported the state of Virginia levied its own $5.25 million fine for environmental clean-up.

Only about $5 million of the fines was earmarked for cleaning up the river and related contaminated sites. Investigations in 1985 determined that the money had been exhausted, while the James River remained choked with contaminated sediment. State officials admitted to the Washington Post that a natural disaster could stir up the sediment but noted that the state could afford neither the $225,000 a year needed for monitoring nor the estimated $2 billion required to dredge the river bottom. Available dredging methods were, by this time, as likely to do as much harm as good.

The money had been distributed among at least 50 programs, all coordinated by Roy N. Puckett, who was legendary for keeping his records in his head. After he died in 1981, the state took nine months to figure out how the money had been spent. Betty J. Diener, Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Resources, told the Washington Post in 1985 that the second-largest project funded from the fine had been a $516,000 marketing campaign to help Virginia's beleaguered seafood industry. The largest project was the replacement of a sewage plant that had been damaged by kepone-laced wastes; other projects included studies of the health effects of kepone and a plan for burning kepone at sea.

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